THE 

FOURTH  WARD 
SURVEY 


ROCHESTER 


AMOJV  YOUR  CITY 


COLIN  CAMPBELL  COOPER’S  “MAIN  STREET  BRIDGE” 
THE  BEGINNING  AND  END  OF  THE  WARD 


EDWIN  ALFRED  RUMBALL 


EN  CENTS  A  COPY  Published  by  The  Common  Good  Publishing  Co.,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 


EDWIN  ALFRED  RUMBALL 


HOW  TO  MAKE  A  WARD  SURVEY 


Reference:  Prof.  Carol  Aronovici’s  “Knowing  One’s  Own  Community,” 
Free  copies  of  this  sent  on  receipt  of  two  stamps  to  Mr.  Rumball. 


First  of  all  become  well  acquainted  with  the  ward  lines  and  streets.  Find  out 
with  the  aid  of  the  Federal  Census  returns  and  data  usually  obtainable  at  City  Hall, 
such  items  as  density  and  character  of  Population.  See  if  is  possible  to  obtain  the 
birth  rate,  death  rate  and  infant  mortality  rates.  See  how  many  of  the  children  go 
to  school  and  where.  Inquire  as  to  their  attendance,  health  and  recreational 
facilities.  Learn  how  many  Churches  and  philanthropic  institutions  there  are  in 
the  ward  and  what  they  are  doing.  How  far  is  the  school  being  used.  What  are 
the  civic  assets  of  the  ward  ?  What  are  the  ward  records  for  insanity,  crime  and 
pauperism  ?  Number  of  vacant  lots  on  which  children  may  play?  Watch  for  all 
violations  of  city  ordinances.  Photograph  all  conditions  that  call  for  remark. 
Make  all  statistics  as  comparative  as  possible.  Let  house  work  be  done  by  two, 
that  all  criticism  may  be  met  with  corroborative  evidence  ;  be  courteous,  patient 
and  “greatly  obliged.” 


Suggested  Copy  for  House  Record 


No . ; .  Street.  Date . 

Rented  Mortgaged  Owned  Race  Rent 


Number  of  Families  in  house.  Number  of  Persons. 


“  “  “  “  tenements.  “  “  “  in  tenements. 

“  “  “  over  stores.  “  “  “  over  stores. 

Bathroom?  Inside  Toilet  ?  “  “  Roomers. 

Who  work  in  the  family  for  wages  ?  “  “  children  under  16. 

Name  of  Owner .  Address . 

Remarks  : 


BIRDS-EYE  VIEW  OF  THE  FOURTH  WARD 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


A  Study  in  our  Civic  and 
Social  Tendencies. 


In  July,  1911,  a  survey  was  made  of  the  Fourth  Ward.  It  was  con¬ 
ducted  by  the  writer  with  the  help  of  four  others :  Dr.  Albert  Bowen, 
now  of  Honolulu;  Mr.  Harold  Sanford,  Mr.  Frank  Osborn,  both  of  the 
University  of  Rochester ;  and  Miss  Rachel  Stillwell,  who  did  the  statistical 
work  on  the  children.  A  mass  of  data  was  obtained  and  many  photo¬ 
graphs  taken. 

Like  other  things  needing  to  be  done  in  the  City  it  was  a  piece  of 
“Nobody’s  Business,”  but  it  will  pay  well  if  it  in  any  way  leads  other 
groups  to  study  other  wards  in  a  similar  manner.  We  did  not  choose  the 
ward  unit  because  we  were  fond  of  it,  but  only  because  it  was  a  unit 
which  for  the  present  was  the  most  practical  for  getting  things  done.  If 
groups  of  young  men  from  the  churches  and  social  institutions,  or  the 
class  in  Civics  at  the  University  were  to  take  up  like  studies  in  the  other 
wards  of  the  city  a  further  value  would  be  given  to  our  data  by  the  com¬ 
parison.  The  Fourth  Ward  was  chosen  for  more  than  one  reason.  It  was 
no  small  reason  that  the  surveyors  were  members  of  a  church  which  stood 
in  the  centre  of  the  ward.  They  were  beginning  to  answer  a  new  question, 
not,  why  don’t  the  people  come  to  the  churches,  but  why  don’t  the  churches 
go  to  the  people?  A  further  reason  was  that  the  Fourth  Ward  was  small 
■enough  for  a  small  group  of  workers  to  handle.  It  is  the  smallest  ward  but 
four.  Another  reason  was  that  this  ward  had  the  reputation  of  being  one 
of  the  worst  in  the  city.  It  will  be  remembered  that  it  used  to  be  called 
the  “Bloody  Fourth.”  After  having  gone  through  the  ward  they  do  not 
feel  that  it  is  the  worst,  it  probably  stands  third  in  such  a  reckoning.  Last 
but  not  least  it  was  felt  that  in  this  ward  there  would  be  found  little  immi-  ■ 
gration  which  could  be  blamed  for  the  bad  conditions.  It  was  found  to  be 
largely  an  American  ward.  According  to  the  13th  Census  the  population 
•of  the  ward  was  5,821.  Of  this  number  we  found  that  only  413  were 
immigrants,  and  most  of  these  had  been  over  so  long  that  they  ought  to 
be  spoken  of  as  Americans. 


4 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


For  the  sake  of  reference  we  give  the  outline  of  the  ward  as  follows : 
It  begins  in  the  river  and  ends  there.  Running  from  about  67  Main  Street  y 
East,  south  side,  to  the  Liberty  Building,  it  takes  in  the  west  side  of  East 
Avenue  to  William  Street.  Then  one  side  of  the  following  streets:  1-245 
William  Street,  101-321  Monroe  Avenue,  117-193  Alexander  Street;  both 
sides  of  Monroe  Avenue  from  1-100;  1-334  of  South  Avenue;  1-375  of 
Clinton  Avenue  South;  1-106  of  Broadway;  1-57  Pearl  Street;  134-164 
South  Union  Street ;  126-395  Court  Street  and  1-22  George  Street.  Last 
of  all  the  entire  streets  of  the  following  names :  Atlas,  Capron,  Chestnut, 
Cortland,  Downs,  Denning,  Elm,  Ely,  Euclid,  Griffith,  Howell,  Johnson, 
Lawn,  Marshall,  South,  South  Water,  Stone,  and  Temple  streets;  Minerva 
Place,  Meyer  Place,  Martha  Place,  Morley  Place,  O’Neil  Place  and  Lauer 
Park. 

As  a  ward  it  has  some  things  to  distinguish  it  from  other  wards. 
The  assessed  value  of  its  real  estate  is  now  $12,596,850;  only  four 
wards  are  higher.  The  personal  estate  of  the  same  period  was  $1,529,060, 
the  First  Ward  alone  is  higher.  The  only  mention  in  the  Report 
of  the  City  Plan  of  Rochester  of  “unsightly,  cheap  and  ill-kept 
tenements’’  was  to  buildings  in  the  Fourth  Ward.  For  all  the  unhealthy 
living  conditions  that  we  found  in  the  ward,  it  is  the  only  ward  which  has 
a  medical  man  for  its  Alderman.  It  can  probably  boast  of  more  saloons 
to  the  acre  than  any  other  section  of  the  City.  The  thirteen  places  in  which 
liquor  can  be  obtained  on  South  Avenue  between  Main  Street  and  the 
Canal  Bridge  is  what  one  might  expect  in  some  Western  mining  towns 
or  in  Whitechapel  in  London,  but  not  in  a  city  of  the  character  of 
Rochester.  In  density  of  population  it  stands  fourth  among  the  wards  of 
the  City,  it  having  45  persons  to  the  acre.  One  thing  we  particularly 
noticed  was  that  very  few  people  of  the  ward  owned  their  own  homes. 
Birds  of  the  air  have  nests  and  savages  have  their  wigwams,  but  the  vast 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  Fourth  Ward  have  nowhere  to  lay  their 
heads  without  paying  rent. 

A  word  is  perhaps  necessary  of  the  spirit  in  which  the  survey  was 
conducted.  It  was  Thoreau  who  said,  “If  I  knew  that  a  man  was  coming 
to  my  house  with  the  conscious  design  of  doing  me  good  I  would  flee  for 
my  life.”  Every  man  with  a  home  in  this  land  has  a  little  of  this  feeling. 
He  does  not  feel  the  need  of  being  surveyed  and  rather  resents  all  inquiry 
that  sounds  like  it.  However  anxious  we  were  to  get  our  information,  we 
tried  to  remember  this,  and  considering  the  large  number  of  questions 
which  we  put  as  we  went  from  house  to  house  and  room  to  room,  we  were 
on  the  whole  treated  most  patiently  and  courteously. 

The  motives  which  moved  us  to  the  work  were  not  those  of  pity. 
That  a  man  is  living  in  conditions  which  for  us  would  be  very  uncom¬ 
fortable  and  distressing  is  not  of  itself  a  reason  for  our  pity.  His  environ¬ 
ment  and  education  may  have  fitted  him  for  nothing  better,  and  a  lifting  of 
him  to  our  notion  of  good  living  conditions  might  make  him  very  unhappy. 
Our  real  excuse  for  meddling  with  his  unhealthy  comfort  was  that  he 
could  be  more  a  menace  to  others  than  to  himself ;  for  evil  living  condi¬ 
tions  are  a  social  injustice,  and  in  this  knowledge  should  be  approached. 
Last  but  not  least,  we  were  moved  to  do  this  thing  in  the  interest  of  the 
children.  We  do  not  believe  that  their  destiny  is  wrapped  up  in  that  of 
their  parents.  Undeserving  men  and  women  there  may  be,  but  nowhere 
are  there  any  undeserving  children.  The  parents  may  be  at  home  in 
these  conditions  and  desire  nothing  better,  but  the  children  from  the 
beginning  should  be  led  to  expect  something  better.  Closely  allied  with 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rnmball 


5 


this  question  of  the  child  is  the  conviction  we  had  that  at  bottom  the  real 
evil  of  our  cities  was  the  evil  of  the  home.  According-  as  the  home  is 
either  good  or  bad  so  will  be  our  whole  municipal  life.  If  the  home  is 
menaced  by  evil  housing,  low  wages,  ignorant  parents,  so  will  our  common 
life  in  politics  and  morals  be  found  low.  The  family  is  the  unit  of  our 
civilization  and  the  effect  of  all  hurts  upon  it  is  felt  throughout  our  entire 
life.  The  white  plague  of  Tuberculosis,  the  red  plague  of  Prostitution 
and  the  grey  plague  of  Infant  Mortality,  all  come  because  the  homes  of 
the  people  are  in  peril. 


Housing  and  Homes 


The  ownership  of  property  which  can  be  rented  as  homes  for  the 
people  is  one  of  the  greatest  social  burdens  which  can  be  put  upon  the 
men  and  women  of  our  community.  To  the  pr-overbial  ‘‘landlords  trou¬ 
bles,” — which  many  landlords  bring  upon  themselves, — there  must  be 
added  the  grave  obligations  which  come  upon  them  as  the  custodians 
of  the  home  and  its  power  for  good  and  evil.  A  master  of  industry  may 
hurt  society  by  the  payment  of  low  wages  and  unfit  conditions  of  labor; 
a  politician  may  demoralize  a  community  by  graft  and  civic  treason ;  but 
the  landlord  has  it  in  his  power  to  hurt  deadlier  than  all,  for  he  may  strike 
at  the  home  and  destroy  the  institution  upon  which  all  the  other  institu¬ 
tions  of  our  civilization  are  founded.  This  may  be  a  new  thought  for 
many  landlords,  but  “a  man  has  just  as  much  right  to  kill  another  man  in 
the  street  with  an  ax  as  he  has  to  kill  him  with  a  house.”  Rent  can  be  and 
often  is,  blood-money. 

Of  course  many  bad  landlords  are  unconscious  sinners  even  in  this 
day  of  social  enlightenment.  Their  conscience  is  in  the  keeping  of  house 
agents  and  rent-collectors,  and  the  conditions  surrounding  the  real  source 
of  their  income  are  unknown  to  them.  Or,  and  this  is  perhaps  more  often 
Irue,  their  eyes  are  yet  blind  to  the  great  social  wrongs  which  bad-housing 


6 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


can  inflict.  They  have  looked  at  their  old  houses  and  other  people’s  old 
houses,  and  while  seeing  that  they  were  the  places  where  poor  folk  lived,, 
they  have  not  seen  that  they  were  slums.  We  all  forget  that  there  are 
different  kinds  of  slums,  that  each  city  has  its  own  type  of  slum.  There 
is  the  London  slum,  the  Berlin  slum,  and  the  New  York  slum;  the  San 
Francisco  slum  and  the  Rochester  slum.  Even  our  villages  have  their 
slums.  And  because  there  does  not  seem  to  exist  in  Rochester  a  slum  like' 
a  London  slum  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  our  city  is  slumless.  That 
we  are  only  just  beginning  to  learn  this,  may  not  be  against  us.  The  very 
best  landlord  had  to  learn,  and  his  social  awakening  and  social  virtue 
doubtless  came  gradually.  That  a  lot  of  our  poor  men’s  homes  are  in  the 
hands  of  people  who  are  counted  among  the  most  honored  of  our  citizens, 
that  some  of  the  worst  are  owned  by  good  church  members,  should  not 
lead  us  to  sarcastic  remarks  but  rather  to  show  them  the  next  step  in  their 
religion.  We  had  to  be  shown,  and  it  is  their  due.  What  is  bad  housing?' 
If  a  house  imperils  the  bodily  or  moral  health  of  the  tenant  in  any  way, 
it  is  a  bad  house.  If  it  is  unsafe  and  unsanitary  and  thus  unfit  for  home¬ 
making,  it  is  a  bad  house.  If  it  in  any  way  hurts  the  community,  it  is  a  bad 
house.  The  old  idea — let’s  call  it  old,  though  it  is  still  with  us, — was  that 
a  house  or  room  to  rent,  was  a  financial  proposition,  something  to  make 
money.  The  new  idea — let’s  call  it  new,  though  it  has  hardly  yet 
dawned, — is  that  a  place  to  rent,  must  be  first  of  all  a  place  in  which  to* 
live.  It  must  be  an  ethical  and  physical  proposition,  something  to  make 
citizens. 

Perhaps  the  first  thing  to  say  in  writing  of  the  housing  conditions  of 
the  Fourth  Ward  is  to  state  the  kind  of  houses  that  we  found  there.  This 
must  of  course  be  largely  a  description  of  outsides.  If  we  had  had  time 
and  opportunity  we  could  have  noted  the  interiors,  but  the  American  is 
lord  of  his  castle,  and  however  much  we  may  have  desired  to  measure,  in 
some  of  the  houses,  the  strata  of  dirt  on  the  walls  and  floor,  or  to  note  the- 
cracks  and  loose  plastering  where  germs  can  breed  at  leisure,  we  should 
have  been  refused. 

Originally,  the  one  family  house  was  the  universal  type.  Our  street 
sheets  of  the  Survey  show  that  there  are  only  321  houses  in  the  Fourth 
Ward  with  but  one  family  in  them.  Every  man  and  woman  has,  or 
ought  to  have,  a  feeling  of  everlasting  sanctity  for  the  place  which  through 
all  childhood  days  was  known  as  ‘Tome.”  Seventy  per  cent,  or  there¬ 
abouts  of  the  families  in  the  Fourth  Ward  will  never  be  able  to  claim  one 
house  there  with  the  joy  of  sole  rentship, — not  ownership, — for  upstairs- 
and  downstairs  and  in  a  few  cases  even  the  cellar,  is  somebody  else’s 
home.  Nearly  a  hundred  houses — not  flats — had  two  families  in  them,, 
twenty-one  had  three,  ten  had  four.  Hundreds  had  roomers. 

Some  parts  of  the  Ward,  notably  East  Avenue,  Alexander,  William,. 
Lawn,  Griffith  Streets  and  a  few  others  had  houses  with  which  no  fault 
can  be  found  in  this  Survey.  An  odd  house  here  and  there  on  these  streets 
might  be  found  which  could  be  criticized,  but  on  the  whole  the  housing  was 
good.  We  do  not  wish  at  any  moment  to  give  the  impression  that  we- 
found  anything  sensational.  Conditions  usually  have  to  grow  a  great 
deal  worse  before  they  are  thought  bad  enough  to  remedy.  Our  hope  is,, 
that  we  may  act  before  that  time  comes.  That  some  things  that  we  found 
were  bad  enough,  we  leave  our  readers  to  judge.  Let  us  not  imagine, — 
this  is  the  continual  warning  of  Lawrence  Veiller,  the  great  housing  expert 
of  New  York, — that  there  is  no  necessity  for  action,  because  conditions  in; 
our  city  are  not  as  bad  as  elsewhere. 


by  Edzvin  Alfred  Rumball 


7 


FIVE  EXHIBITS  OF  HOUSING  CONDITIONS  IN  THE  FOURTH  WARD 


8 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


Bad  housing  does  not  always  mean  old  or  poor  looking  houses.  We 
found  recently  built  houses  and  expensive  looking  houses  that  deserved  to 
be  included  in  our  charge  of  bad  housing.  The  expensive  and  uncrowded, 
well-kept  flat  may  find  itself  in  the  same  category  as  the  slum.  This  is 
certainly  true  if  children  are  allowed  to  live  there.  Of  course  in  a  ward 
so  near  the  center  of  the  city,  there  are  a  large  number  of  modern  apart¬ 
ment  houses.  We  found  27  such  buildings  and  in  them  some  200  families. 
In  most  of  them  be  it  said,  to  their  credit,  children  are  not  allowed.  In 
some,  children  are  theoretically  excluded,  but  find  their  way  to  them.  We 
can  believe  that  landlords  are  so  kind  when  the  stork  finds  their  flats  that 
they  have  not  the  heart  to  evict.  But  no  landlord  is  kind  and  no  parent  is 
kind  who  tries  to  make  home  for  a  child  past  babyhood  in  one  of  these 
flats.  This  same  reasoning  applies  to  the  many  rooming  houses  that  we 
found.  In  this  Ward  are  about  1,300  roomers.  The  street  which  had  the 
heaviest  count  was  Chestnut  Street,  where  we  found  331,  though  there 
are  only  71  houses  on  the  street.  Some  of  these  houses  were  well  cared 
for  and  in  them  no  children.  In  others  it  was  a  puzzle  to  see  where  they  all 
slept.  One  old  man  said  that  his  house  had  eight  rooms,  including  the  , 
kitchen,  and  that  while  they  had  five  roomers,  he  and  his  wife  were  very 
anxious  to  obtain  three  more.  Of  course  the  query  is,  where  would  he  and 
his  wife  sleep?  The  best  that  we  can  hope  is  that  like  a  house  that  the 
writer  once  found  in  a  London  slum,  where  the  beds  had  three  “shifts”  of 
sleepers  every  twenty-four  hours — eight  hours  each  by  the  clock — that  the 
old  couple  at  least  had  day  sleepers  among  their  roomers.  The  rooming 
business  is  more  than  a  business  of  convenience.  Love  of  profit,  high 
rents  and  heavy  taxes  are  all  reasons  for  the  rooming  business.  The  New 
York  City  Commission  on  the  Congestion  of  Population,  which  recently 
made  its  report,  found  rooming  houses  a  great  cause  of  overcrowding. 
In  this  section  of  the  Ward  the  population  is  planted  at  the  rate  of  63  to 
the  acre.  This  is  one  of  the  thickest  in  the  city  of  Rochester. 

One  of  the  worst  conditions  that  we  found  in  the  Ward  in  more  than 
one  place  is  illustrated  in  Exhibit  3  of  the  composite  photograph  on  an¬ 
other  page.  These  houses — three  only  of  five  are  seen — are  in  the  back 
garden  of  a  Griffith  Street  house.  The  little  lane  which  runs  between  the 
houses,  is  called  Lauer  Park.  They  do  not  appear  to  be  of  recent  con¬ 
struction,  but  there  is  no  indication  on  the  map  of  Rochester  that  such  a 
place  exists.  To  come  to  it,  one  has  to  travel  the  Canal  tow-path  and 
turn  from  it  a  little  before  reaching  Denning  Street.  Of  back-garden  or 
rear-lot  houses  we  found  some  twentv-five  in  the  Ward.  Monroe  Avenue, 
South  Street,  South  Clinton  and  James  Street  all  have  them ;  Gailley  Place, 
Martha  Place  and  Morley  Place  should  also  be  included  in  such  counting. 
Broadway  seemed  to  have  the  largest  number  of  such  houses.  Meyer 
Place,  which  turns  off  from  Broadway,  can  show  as  good  a  lot  of  houses 
of  this  kind  as  appear  anywhere  in  the  Ward.  We  mean  good  in  the  best 
sense.  They  are  well-cared  for  and  the  tenants  seem  to  be  of  a  choice 
kind.  We  feel  sure  that  one  good  reason  for  these  better  conditions  is 
the  fact  that  the  rents  are  comparatively  low.  It  pays  to  ask  a  low  rent. 
We  shall  see  this  again  presently.  In  one  of  the  rear-lot  houses  on  the 
Canal  side  of  Broadway  we  were  told  of  three  families  inside.  Many  of 
these  places  have  no  sewer  except  as  we  may  so  denominate  the  Canal. 
Meyer  Place  might  have  one  if  the  level  on  Broadway  allowed  it  to  be 
received ;  that  is  to  say,  the  street  was  made  without  any  thought  of 
other  homes  being  built  in  back-gardens.  If  the  law  had  corresponded 
with  such  short-sightedness,  limiting  the  number  of  houses  which  could 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


9 


be  built  on  a  given  area,  much  of  the  congestion  and  preparation  for  con¬ 
gestion  that  we  have,  might  have  been  spared  us. 


SMALL  AND  CHEAP  FOURTH  WARD  HOMES,  ILLUSTRATING  THE  ASSETS 

OF  HUMANE  LANDLORDISM 

Compared  with  the  congestion  in  larger  cities,  there  is  not  on  the 
whole  any  terrible  congestion  in  the  Fourth  Ward.  But  note  what  there 
is.  Only  three  other  Wards  in  the  city  have  more  congestion,  namely,  the 
7th,  8th,  and  16th.  These  have  55,  51  and  48  persons  to  the  acre  respect¬ 
ively.  The  Fourth  Ward  has  45.  But  there  are  places  in  the  Fourth 
Ward  which  register  much  higher  than  that.  For  example,  the  district 
bounded  by  Court,  Chestnut,  George,  William,  Monroe  Avenue  and 
Clinton  Avenue  South,  has  in  it  702  persons.  It  is  one  of  the  smallest 
enumeration  districts  which  were  taken  in  the  last  census,  yet  these  702 
people  are  living  at  63  to  the  acre.  It  is  demanded  that  25  people  to  the 
acre  alone  gives  really  healthful  environment.  This  is  often  hard  to  get 
in  our  cities  but  the  good  residential  sections  of  our  city  manage  to  get  it. 
The  density  of  population  in  the  10th  Ward  is  ten  to  the  acre,  in  the  12th 
Ward  it  is  nineteen,  in  the  14th  Ward  it  is  only  fourteen;  if  air  and  sun¬ 
shine  are  more  necessary  for  the  poor  than  the  rich,  why  are  we  so  con¬ 
tent  to  let  them  have  less  of  it?  The  pity  is  that,  if  we  get  such  human 
conditions  for  the  poor  to  live  in,  it  may  make  their  living  harder,  for  up 
will  go  the  rents.  We  found  that  one  landlord, — we  ought  to  write  LORD1 
in  capitals, — even  had  the  audacity  to  charge  extra  rent  for  God’s  sun¬ 
shine.  The  tenants  on  the  sunny  side  of  his  block  had  to  put  an  extra 
piece  into  his  pocket  because  the  sun  shined  there.  We  wonder  where  he 
found  his  estimate  on  the  value  of  sunshine!  We  wonder  whether  his 
conscience  ever  tells  him  to  reduce  the  rent  on  the  shady  side  to  but  two- 
thirds  the  other ! 

We  do  not  need  to  remind  our  readers  that  the  worst  feature  that 
we  found  in  the  housing  of  the  people  of  this  Ward,  was  found  in  its  tene¬ 
ment  life.  The  homes  over  some  of  the  stores  on  Monroe  and  South 
Avenues  and  on  some  smaller  streets  present  a  serious  condition.  Roch¬ 
ester  has  as  much  right  to  look  to  its  tenements  as  the  larger  cities  where 


IO 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


they  are  more  plentiful.  No  city  can  afford  to  tolerate  even  the  begin¬ 
nings  of  them.  On  the  ground  of  health  and  social  welfare,  the  1,400 
delegates  to  the  International  Housing  Congress  last  year  in  Vienna, 
unanimously  condemned  the  Tenement.  A  tenement  is  never,  not  even 
under  the  so-called  “model'’  conditions,  a  fit  place  for  a  home  to  be  made. 
Everyone  knows  of  course  that  the  tenement  was  introduced  to  help  solve 
the  question  of  cheap  homes,  but  it  has  miserably  failed.  And  all  housing 
remedies  will  fail  which  try  to  meet  the  situation  with  the  cheapest  thing 
to  be  done.  It  costs  money  to  really  solve  this  problem  of  the  home,  and 
not  the  smallest  amount  must  come  to  the  tenants  in  an  increase  of  wages, 
that  they  may  meet  the  cost  with  their  own  pay.  But  this  is  digressing  to 
our  chapter  on  “Betterment”  before  we  have  our  problem  in  front  of  us. 
Over  some  of  the  stores  on  South  Avenue,  we  found  from  seven  to  twenty 
families.  Some  had  two  or  three  rooms  and  some  less.  Nearly  two  hun¬ 
dred  families,  often,  of  course,  of  only  two  persons,  but  about  7  per  cent, 
of  the  population  were  found  living  over  or  behind  stores  in  more  or  less 
tenement  conditions.  The  terrible  meaning  of  this  fact  for  the  children  of 
the  Ward  we  must  speak  upon  when  we  come  to  deal  with  the  children. 
Suffice  it  to  say  here,  that  the  findings  of  large  cities  in  this  matter  can  be  a 
warning  to  us  of  what  we  must  expect  if  these  things  continue.  Miss 
Fulmer,  Superintendent  of  the  Visiting  Nurses’  Association  of  Chicago, 
says:  “Two-thirds  of  the  delinquent  children  come  from  homes  where 
dirty,  illy-ventilated  rooms  predominate ;  two-thirds  of  the  physical  ill 
children  from  the  same ;  one-third  of  the  shiftless  mothers  from  the  same ; 
two-thirds  of  the  deserting  fathers  from  the  same.  In  a  study  of  fifty 
backward  children  in  an  ungraded  school  of  a  large  city,  forty-three  of 
these  children  occupied  homes  that  it  should  have  been  the  business  of  the 
State  to  see  did  not  exist.”  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  gloom  of  the 
long  dark  stairs  and  passage-landings  which  we  found  in  these  places ; 
these  things  with  the  dark  rooms  and  filthy  sanitary  conditions  must  be 
seen  to  be  understood.  On  Monroe  Avenue  were  found  as  many  as  thirty 
roomers  to  two  toilets,  four  families  to  one  toilet,  nine  families  to  three 
toilets.  On  Main  Street  Bridge  where  the  ward  line  begins,  there  is  a 
piece  of  property  owned  by  a  non-resident,  which  has  four  families  on  the 
top  floor  without  any  toilet.  The  landlord  told  the  tenants  to  use  the  office 
toilets  on  the  floor  below.  This  enables  him  to  house  an  extra  tenant 
where  the  toilet  ought  to  be,  and  is  therefore  more  profitable.  Frequently 
the  toilets  were  in  dark  unventilated  cellars.  On  one  small  street  one 
could  smell  the  nuisance  arising  from  one  of  the  cellars  by  simply  passing 
the  house,  so  filthy  was  it.  Upon  this  street  are  but  three  houses ;  but 
being  owned  by  three  different  persons  there  is  little  social  influence  the 
one  on  the  others.  A  good  tenant  cannot  control  the  character  of  those 
who  would  become  her  neighbors.  In  these  three  small  houses  are  to  be 
found  six  or  seven  families,  containing  about  two  dozen  persons.  Only 
one  of  the  houses  has  a  single  family. 

Some  houses  here  and  there  in  the  Ward,  need  a  more  radical  remedy 
than  that  which  we  may  offer  for  the  others.  “It  should  not  be  forgotten,” 
says  an  English  writer  on  Housing,  “that  the  housing  question  is  not  one 
of"  building  only,  it  is  also  one  of  demolition.”  We  hope  that  the  city  of 
Rochester  at  the  proper  time  will  take  such  a  view  of  the  question,  in 
regard  to  some  of  the  property  on  the  West  side  of  South  Avenue,  when 
the  Canal  has  to  be  abandoned.  Upon  the  property  that  we  have  in  mind, 
we  found  some  of  the  worst  features  in  the  Ward.  In  one  of  the  blocks 
we  found  18  families  and  13  single  Greek  men.  One  of  the  Exhibits — A — 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


1 1 


given  with  this  chapter,  shows  a  cellar  home  in  this  row  where  an  Italian 
family  live  in  the  day.  Everyone,  i.  e.  five  in  family  plus  four  boarders, 
sleeps  above  ground.  But  at  No.  201— see  Exhibit  1 — there  is  a  real  cellar 
home.  In  the  photograph  it  is  just  possible  to  distinguish  the  window  of 
this  residence,  about  eighteen  inches  above  the  pathway.  Down  below  we 
found  an  Irish  family,  an  old  couple  who  deserved  better  from  their 
adopted  country.  We  should  not  like  to  have  to  fetch  our  coal  from  the 
place  where  they  had  to  sleep.  The  landlord  is  doubtless  within  his  legal 
rights  in  so  renting.  The  law  of  this  State  regarding  tenements  does  say 
something  about  cellar  homes,  but  it  should  make  them  illegal,  not  try 
to  make  them  inhabitable.  New  York  City  has  25,000  of  them.  The 
Statician  of  the  Prudential  Insurance  Company  in  a  statement  before  the 
Congestion  Commission  called  all  cellar  homes  “inhuman” ;  and  that  they 
are.  Insurance  men  are  not  given  to  sentiment  when  dealing  with  such 
questions  and  we  may  feel  sure  that  every  piece  of  evil-housing  in  the  city 
of  Rochester  to-day  is  a  certain  financial  loss  as  well  as  a  loss  in  many 
other  respects. 

In  this  Ward  are  to  be  found  two  large  tenements  belonging  to  one 
estate.  The  property  is  not  any  worse  in  some  respects  than  some  smaller 
pieces  in  the  Ward;  the  fact  that  there  is  a  janitor  and  that  there  are  bath¬ 
rooms  in  the  blocks  may  indicate  a  real  care  to  make  the  best  of  the  bar¬ 
rack-looking  places.  One  of  these  tenements  is  of  the  dumbbell  variety 
which  is  one  of  the  very  worst  things  to  plan  for  in  a  city. — See  Exhibit 
2 — In  this  tenement  were  14  families  and  although  children  were  forbid¬ 
den,  they  were  there.  It  was  a  hot  July  day  when  we  went  to  this  block 
and  the  yard  was  covered  with  garbage.  The  stench  from  this  was  so 
great  that  the  tenants  had  to  keep  their  windows  closed  to  breathe  with 
any  pleasure.  We  took  a  photograph  of  the  yard  but  as  we  could  not 
photograph  the  smell  it  did  not  seem  well  to  reproduce  it  here.  . 

Legally  it  could  doubtless  be  shown  that  the  owners  were  not  respon¬ 
sible  for  this  condition,  but  it  seems  to  us  that  especially  in  tenements 
proper  receptacles  for  garbage  ought  to  be  asked  of  the  owners,  and  untidy 
tenant  and  careless  collector  made  to  do  better.  The  other  tenement  con¬ 
tained  16  families  and  no  children.  On  neither  of  these  blocks  were  there 
fire-escapes,  doubtless  the  law  does  not  require  them  but  the  frame  stairs 
leading  to  the  back  doors  of  the  tenants,  would  have  been  soon  consumed 
in  a  big  blaze.  This  was  not  an  infrequent  condition  in  the  Ward,  and 
in  one  of  the  large  flats,  a  small  fire  risk  came  about  two  years  ago  and 
we  understand  that  at  that  time  a  fire  escape  was  promised,  but  it  has 
never  been  erected. 

One  of  the  ways,  owners  have  of  doubling  their  rentals  is  to  build 
on  the  entire  lot  line  and  get  two  houses  where  only  one  ought  to  be.  This 
is  not  only  true  of  the  rear-lot  houses  that  we  have  already  spoken  of,  but 
also  of  quite  a  few  recently  built  houses  facing  the  street.  In  this  type  of 
house  or  flat  there  is  no  yard  of  any  kind  and  the  child  within  has 
nowhere  but  the  street  for  play.  Her  sand  pile  and  romping  ground  have 
been  used  to  put  money  into  some  thoughtless  landlord  s  pocket.  See 
Exhibit  5. 

We  ought  to  make  some  comment  on  the  fact  that  one  of  these  tene¬ 
ments  was  over  a  saloon.  To  survey  the  Fourth  Ward  is  to  come  veiy 
close  to  the  influence  of  the  saloon.  The  law  forbids  that  such  a  place  be 
placed  within  so  near  to  a  church,  but  says  nothing  of  the  greater  menace 
of  its  nearness  to  a  home.  Does  it  not  seem  to  the  men  and  women  of 
to-day  that  the  only  right  and  safe  law  to  make  in  regard  to  the  position 


12 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


TWO  FOURTH  WARD  BLOCKS  WITH  NO  FIRE  ESCAPES 
16  families  in  one,  n  in  the  other 

of  saloons,  is  to  place  them  so  many  yards  away  from  homes  rather  that* 
from  churches  ?  Why  should  the  churches  which  are  closed  three  parts  of 
the  week  be  protected  from  the  evil  influence  of  the  saloon,  while  a  poor 
widow  and  her  children,  in  order  to  get  cheap  housing,  are  obliged  to  live 
over  or  next  door  to  one  ?  The  church  will  get  little  hurt  from  proximity  — - 
to  a  saloon,  and  may  get  a  great  deal  of  good  if  it  leads  the  people  of  the 
church  to  transform  the  saloons  into  coffee  houses  as  they  do  in  London 
when  they  come  too  near.  But  the  home  is  too  often  unable  to  protect  itself 
against  the  influence  and  should  be  the  first  to  be  protected.  If  we  imperil 
the  homes  of  the  people  we  imperil  everything. 

“The  more  things  improve,  the  louder  become  our  exclamations 
about  their  badness.”  So  said  Herbert  Spencer  some  years  ago.  That  the 
Fourth  Ward  is  getting  this  revelation — call  it  exclamation,  if  you  will, — 
may  be  the  most  hopeful  thing  about  the  Ward.  Let  us  reiterate  that 
other  Wards  could  show  an  equally  bad  state  of  things  and  we  believe  even 
worse.  To  help  by  comparison  with  the  Fourth  Ward  we  had  small  sur¬ 
veys  taken  in  the  11th  and  20th  Wards  also.  Out  of  340  homes  investi¬ 
gated  in  the  11th  Ward  on  such  streets  as  Tremont,  Clifton,  Jefferson,. 
Penn,  Gladstone,  Troup,  Rockland,  Epworth,  St.  Clair,  Churchlea  and 
Terry,  we  found  that  while  50  per  cent,  of  the  homes  were  owned — 
which  is  better  than  the  Fourth  Ward — still,  50  per  cent,  of  the  rented 
homes  were  without  bathrooms,  and  11  per  cent,  of  these  houses  had  toilets 
in  the  cellar,  which  is  quite  as  bad,  if  not  worse  than  the  Fourth.  Then 
from  204  similar  houses  in  the  20th  Ward  we  found  that  45  per  cent, 
were  rented,  and  here  also  50  per  cent,  of  these  were  without  bathrooms. 
Instead  of  the  nuisance  of  cellar  toilets,  the  neighbors  in  this  Ward  had 
most  complaint  to  make  of  outside  closets.  But  this  whole  method  of 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


i3 


comparison  is  questionable,  for  we  ought  not  to  be  satisfied  with  mere 
averages.  In  the  London  County  Council  Schools,  three  decayed  teeth 
are  charted  as  normal,  many  slight  eye  defects,  many  slight  degrees  of 
feeble  nutrition  and  many  slight  deformities  are  “normal.”  None  the  less 
these  things  are  handicaps  and  such  average  children  are  very  average  in 
general  capacity,  character  and  citizenship.  We  must  strike  at  evil,  seen 
as  evil  and  not  be  content  because  it  is  only  better  than  some  condition 
that  is  really  very  bad. 

We  cannot  take  space  to  register  all  the  complaints  that  we  were 
forced  to  listen  to  as  we  went  from  door  to  door  and  from  room  to  room. 
“Don’t  call  this  a  city  of  Flowers,”  said  one  hard  working  woman,  at  the 
top  of  a  tenement,  “when  my  children  have  to  live  in  a  place  like  this.” 
Some  lamented  lack  of  bathrooms — no  mean  lack  during  those  hot  July 
days — some,  dirty  and  broken  toilets ;  some,  high  rents ;  some,  unremoved 
garbage ;  some,  dark  rooms ;  some,  dark  passages ;  some,  risky  and  broken 
stairways ;  some,  low  wages ;  some,  lack  of  fire  escapes ;  and  some,  that 
they  had  no  yards  for  the  children  to  play.  The  total  effect  of  these  things 
was  that  few  could  speak  in  love  for  their  city ;  and  without  that  a  city  is 
lost.  With  love  it  may  become  great  and  honored.  To  adapt  some  recent 
words  of  Gilbert  K.  Chesterton,  we  close  by  saying,  “It  is  not  enough  for  a 
man  to  disapprove  of  the  Fourth  Ward.  In  that  case  he  will  merely  cut  his 
throat  or  move  into  the  Twelfth.  Nor,  certainly,  is  it  enough  for  a  man  to 
approve  of  the  Fourth  Ward,  for  then  it  would  remain  the  Fourth  Ward, 
which  would  be  awful.  The  only  way  out  of  it  seems  to  be,  for  someone 
to  love  the  Fourth  Ward,  to  love  it  transcendentally  and  without  any 
earthly  reason.  .  .  .  Men  did  not  love  Rome  because  she  was  great. 

So  she  was  great  because  they  loved  her.” 


THE  WADSWORTH  SCHOOL,  NO.  12 


JFfe  Children  of  the  Ward 

“Being  a  baby  is  an  extra-hazardous  occupation.  This  will  be  the 
judgment  of  all  who  know  the  evil  living  conditions  of  our  modern  cities. 
The  soldier  who  goes  to  some  terrible  battle  or  enters  upon  a  long  period 
of  bloody  war,  the  sailor  who  faces  the  dangers  of  a  long  voyage  on 


H 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


THE  DEAD  BABY  OF  THE  WORKERS 

— Detail from  Jules  Van  Biesbroeek's  monument  in  Museum  of  Venice 


“One  third  of  the  Population  in  our  Cemetries  consists 
of  children  under  five  years  of  age.’’  In  Rochester  last 
year  (1911)  694  were  buried. 

unknown  and  stormy  seas,  the  miner  who  takes  his  life  in  his  hand  into  the 
bowels  of  the  earth  and  the  aviator  who  lifts  it  into  the  dangers  of  the 
upper  air,  all  possess  less  hazardous  occupations  than  the  little  baby  who 
comes  to  live  in  our  modern  cities.  It  has  been  written  that  “one-third 
of  the  population  of  our  cemeteries  consists  of  children  under  five  years 
of  age.  .  .  The  little  tots  could  not  have  walked  the  distance  if  we 

had  not  pushed  them  all  the  way.”  And  yet  the  most  pitiful  victim  of  our 
modern  city  life  is  not  the  baby  who  dies,  but  the  slum  child  who  lives. 
The  child  who  dies  robs  the  nation  of  a  citizen,  but  very  often  the  child 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


15 


who  lives  gives  to  the  nation  one  more  tuberculosis  victim  or  one  more 
criminal. 

The  survey  of  the  Fourth  Ward  was  undertaken  very  largely  in  the 
interest  of  the  children.  Most  of  the  questions  that  we  asked  as  we  went 
from  door  to  door  had  reference  to  the  children.  If  the  City  of  Roch¬ 
ester  were  feeling  the  fundamental  importance  of  the  child  life  of  our  city 
as  we  hope  one  day  it  will,  it  would  have  been  possible  to  have  included 
far  more  useful  information  of  the  children  in  this  chapter  than  we  here 
present. 


“there  remains  something  yet  to  be  done  with 

THE  HOMES  OF  THESE  CHILDREN” 


So  much  by  way  of  introduction  to  the  life  of  the  children  of  the 
Fourth  Ward.  Some  of  the  questions  which  no  one  knows  about  in  the 
City  as  a  whole  we  were  able  to  find  out  of  this  ward.  There  are 
about  550  children  in  the  ward ;  of  this  number  about  200  are  under  five 
years  of  age.  It  is  almost  a  babyless  ward  for  we  only  found  31  children 
under  one  year  of  age.  These  children  are  living  mostly  where  there  is 
enough  garden  round  the  house  to  romp  upon ;  but  one-third  of  them 
live  in  tenements  or  in  flats  which  fill  the  entire  lot  and  thus  provide  no¬ 
where  to  play  but  the  street.  Forty-five  per  cent  of  these  children  were 
found  in  tenements  on  South  Avenue,  twenty  per  cent  of  them  found  in  the 
tenements  on  Monroe  Avenue.  We  ought  to  have  added  to  this  large 
group  of  children  those  who  live  in  the  numerous  rooming  houses,  for 
a  child  has  very  little  of  the  freedom  and  joy  of  home  life  who  has  to 
share  home,  sweet  home  with  a  number  of  lodgers,  whose  mothers’  time  is 
taken  up  by  long  hours  of  housekeeping  for  them.  Some  years  ago  the 
women  of  the  city  began  a  movement  which  resulted  in  beautiful  works 
of  art  being  placed  in  our  school  buildings.  Flow  much  benefit  this  has 
been  to  the  children  of  these  congested  wards  it  may  be  impossible  to 
ever  tell,  but  it  must  have  been  immeasurable.  To  compare  the  interior 
beauty  of  our  school  houses  with  those  of  England,  for  example,  makes 
one  proud  of  American  school  ideals.  But  there  remains  something  yet 
to  be  done  with  the  homes  of  these  children.  There  can  be  very  little 
thought  of  beauty  in  the  mind  of  the  child  whose  eyes  look  out  on  bare 


i6 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


walls  enclosing  ash  heaps  and  garbage  piles,  loathsome  outbuildings  and 
other  marks  of  ruin  and  decay,  filth  and  grime.  Our  leading  psycholo¬ 
gists  tell  us  that  everything  which  makes  an  impression  on  the  five  senses 
of  the  child,  helps  to  stamp  the  soul  with  its  power,  and  if  anything  should 
receive  the  care  of  a  city  it  should  be  the  environment  of  its  children. 
It  is  not  a  great  many  years  ago  that  New  York  City  thought  it  had  no 
housing  question  and  the  environment  of  the  children  was  neglected  with 
results  that  have  made  that  city  a  by-word  and  a  horror.  In  a  recent 
article,  Jacob  Riis,  has  written  this  word  which  is  beginning  to  have  terri¬ 
ble  meaning  in  our  own  city.  “The  tenement  without  privacy  spews  out 
the  boy  to  the  street  and  the  saloon  with  its  gambling  and  its  license, 
where  the  brazen  prostitute  goes  in  and  out,  defiant  of  the  law  that  says 
that  she  shall  not,  flaunting  her  tawdry  finery  before  the  tired  girls  whose 
bitter  toil  hardly  suffices  to  feed  and  clothe  their  half-starved  bodies. 


“the  boys  tried  to  play  upon  it,  but  they  were  turned 

OFF  BY  THE  POLICE” 


I  can  hear  yet  the  mother  of  one,  as  I  stood  at  her  window  and  looked 
out  upon  an  airshaft  that  was  her  daily  outlook,  all  there  was  of  it. 
‘Mary  does  not  like  to  sleep  here.’  Mary  had  gone  on  to  the  street.  That 
was  her  story  and  judgment  died  on  my  lips.”  The  cry  for  better  homes 
is  no  dreamer's  cry,  and  until  the  housing  code  of  Rochester  is  made  in 
the  interest  of  the  people  who  have  to  live  in  the  houses  instead  of  in 
the  interest  of  the  persons  who  own  the  houses,  we  may  expect  that  the 
ethical  tone  of  our  city  will  be  gradually  lowered.  The  press  is  already 
beginning  to  speak  of  the  “Underworld  of  Rochester.”  Where  did  it 
begin  ?  We  feel  sure  after  seeing  some  of  the  places  where  the  children 
of  Rochester  were  born  and  what  they  were  expected  to  call  home  that 
their  houses  killed  their  homes. 

There  is  no  Playground  in  the  Fourth  Ward  for  the  play  of  these 
children — Remember  one  child  in  three  only  has  the  street.  There  are 
very  few  vacant  lots  left.  We  give  three  exhibits  of  them  to  show 
where  something  might  be  begun.  The  best  is  probably  the  corner  of 
tffe  Wadsworth  tract  near  No.  12  school,  between  Marshall  and  Griffith  ’ 


by  Edwm  Aljred  Riimball 


i7 


Streets  and  bounded  by  Broadway.  This  land  is  the  property  of  the  city 
but  it  is  unfenced  and  barren  and  of  no  use  to  any  one.  Last  year  when 
the  boys  tried  to  play  upon  it,  they  were  turned  off  by  the  police.  Doubt¬ 
less  their  play  was  of  the  unsupervised  kind  and  proved  a  nuisance ;  but 
there  is  no  reason  why  a  few  swings  and  see-saws  and  sand-piles,  etc. 
might  not  be  placed  on  this  vacant  city  lot  at  once  and  some  one  put  in 
charge  to  supervise  it.  What  better  place  could  there  be  found  for  a 
playground  than  next  to  the  Schoolhouse?  Then  there  is  another  good 
place  for  the  things  that  children  love  behind  the  Universalist  Church. 
It  is  not  large,  but  until  some  use  is  found  for  it,  we  feel  sure  that  the 
Church  will  be  glad  of  the  suggestion  to  loan  it  to  the  children  of  the 
section.  Another  lot,  which  is  being  held  for  a  large  price,  is  next  to 
Gannett  House,  and  ought  to  be  obtained  for  the  children  as  a  place  for 
their  play  forever.  This  lot  is  large  enough  for  many  things  and  half-a- 
•century  hence  will  be  a  boon  in  this  neighborhood,  if  only  it  can  be 
obtained  for  the  children.  It  has  been  said  that  a  Republic  without  sun- 


“the  church  will  be  glad  of  the  suggestion” 


shine,  without  grass  and  flowers,  without  fun  and  frolic  in  the  young 
years  is  a  fraud  on  the  face  of  it.  Be  that  true  or  no,  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  it  is  as  important  that  the  Fourth  Ward  have  these  play¬ 
grounds  as  for  it  to  continue  to  have  the  Convention  Hall,  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce,  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  or  any  of  its  seven  churches. 

Most  of  the  children  of  the  ward  go  to  the  Wadsworth  School, 
better  known  as  No.  12.  Some  300  children — which  is  about  half  of  the 
number  registered  at  that  school — come  from  this  ward.  The  other 
school  in  the  ward  is  St.  Mary's  Parochial  School.  The  children  in  this 
school  come  from  long  distances  and  actually  only  about  60  or  70  come 
from  the  ward.  We  made  a  careful  analysis  of  last  year’s  school  records 
of  the  Wadsworth  School  to  discover  how  many  children  were  sick 
and  how  many  days  were  lost  in  such  sickness.  The  results  can  be 
tabulated  as  follows : 

First  Semester:  September  to  February,  1910-1911. 

Number  of  pupils  from  the  ward :  304. 


i8 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


Number  of  these  who  were  sick:  159. 

Number  of  School  days  lost  by  sickness:  985  days. 

Second  Semester:  February  to  June,  1911. 

Number  of  pupils  from  the  ward:  293. 

Number  of  these  who  were  sick:  150. 

Number  of  school  days  lost  by  sickness:  1028  days. 

During  the  first  term  the  greatest  amount  of  sickness  was  in  the  first 
grade — the  little  tots — where  out  of  50  children  32  lost  294  days  by  sick¬ 
ness.  During  the  second  term,  the  greatest  amount  of  sickness  was  again 
in  this  grade  where  out  of  40  children,  31  lost  344  days  by  sickness.  We 
did  not  study  the  Parochial  School  records,  so  cannot  add  their  figures, 
but  these  alone  are  serious  enough  to  provide  work  for  a  school  nurse  and 
school  visitor  who  if  they  did  not  give  their  whole  time  to  No.  12  school 
could  at  least  give  part  of  their  time  here  and  part  to  some  other  school. 
In  an  exhaustive  examination  made  of  some  seventy  thousand  school 
children  of  the  City  of  Glasgow,  it  was  found  that  those  who  were  living 
in  one  room  were  of  lighter  weight  and  shorter  stature  than  those  whose 
homes  consisted  of  from  two  to  four  rooms.  If  what  we  have  written 
will  only  lead  some  of  us  to  prepare  against  such  figures  ever  being  found 
true  in  this  city,  it  will  have  been  worth  while.  Of  course  there  is  no 
poverty  like  the  poverty  of  the  English  and  Scotch  cities,  but  there  is  no 
telling  what  there  will  be  if  our  children  in  the  down-town  wards  have 
no  better  chance  than  many  that  we  have  seen  seem  to  have. 

There  is  a  great  deal  which  ought  to  be  written  of  the  splendid  work 
which  the  Principal  and  teachers  of  the  Wadsworth  School  are  doing 
for  these  children.  It  is  the  greatest  social  institution  in  the  ward,  but 
the  report  of  our  findings  at  the  school  belong  properly  to  the  next  chap¬ 
ter  which  will  speak  of  the  agencies  which  are  at  work  in  the  ward  for 
its  betterment. 


WHERE  THE  CITY  TEACHES  THE  NEXT  THING  TO  GODLINESS 

fJJe  Assets  of  the  Ward 


It  is  not  yet  as  common  as  we  hope  that  it  will  one  day  be  for  a  survey 
to  be  associated  with  the  assets  of  the  community.  Too  often  such  work 
is  only  a  muck-raking  exhibition  of  the  dark  and  unwholesome  elements. 
But  a  survey  must,  if  it  would  create  confidence,  mirror  the  life  of  the 
community,  not  only  its  marring.  If  it  is  only  acceptable  to  the  yellow 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


19 


editor,  it  will  not  be  acceptable  to  the  people  who  are  needed  to  help 
make  things  better. 

The  great  asset  of  the  Fourth  Ward  is  its  people.  Upon  their  receiv¬ 
ing  the  opportunity  and  power  to  get  together  depends  the  future  of  the 
whole  ward.  Upon  their  children  rests  the  hopes  which  already  are  burn¬ 
ing  to  be  realised  in  many  hearts.  They  may  have  different  views  of  the 
situation  and  have  different  degrees  of  civic  enthusiasm,  but  they  are  and 
must  be  the  ones  to  bring  about  most  of  the  good  things  that  we  shall 
afterwards  mention,  and  by  the  People  of  the  Fourth  Ward  we  mean  all 
of  the  people,  rich  and  poor,  good  and  bad.  We  took  the  photograph  one 
day  in  the  ward  of  one  of  its  tenement  children.  The  little  girl  was  nine 
years  of  age  but  only  looked  about  five.  Her  mother  was  dead  and  her 
father  had  never  been  known.  She  was  dirty  and  ill-clad.  She  was  cer¬ 
tainly  ill-nourished  and  underfed.  She  had  nowhere  to  play  but  the 
street,  where  we  found  her  at  times  begging  pennies  from  the  passersby. 
We  mention  the  poor  little  thing  in  order  to  say  that  even  this  white,  thin 
little  body  is  one  of  the  assets  of  the  Fourth  Ward.  We  refuse  to  speak  of 
her  yet  as  a  menace.  She  yet  has  a  chance.  But  if  the  City  of  Rochester 
does  not  soon  awake  to  the  seriousness  of  having  such  a  playless,  homeless 
condition  for-  its  little  ones,  they  will  indeed  be  the  menace  of  the  com¬ 
munity.  Human  life  everywhere  is  an  asset  until  by  continual  treading  of 
it  down  in  the  mire  it  becomes  a  living  pestilence. 

The  Fourth  Ward  contains  a  number  of  institutions  whose  presence 
in  that  part  of  the  city  is  accidental.  They  are  not  there  for  the  good  of 
the  ward  so  much  as  for  the  good  of  the  city.  These  are  the  Health 
Bureau,  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the  Convention  Hall,  the  City  Baths, 
the  Labor  Lyceum,  the  Socialist  Headquarters,  The  Brotherhood  and  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  We  ought  perhaps  also  to  add  the  nine  or  ten  theaters  and 
amusement  houses.  The  work  of  none  of  these  agencies  can  be  measured 
by  the  influence  they  have  on  the  ward ;  nothing  but  a  city  survey  could 
tell  just  what  they  mean  to  us;  but  in  a  few  instances  there  is  a  direct 
and  indirect  touch  with  their  immediate  neighborhood.  For  instance, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  the  City  Baths  where  there  are  200  baths  a 
day  and  some  400  plunges,  that  the  people  of  the  district  surrounding  the 
Bath  House  are  regular  participants  in  this  civic  asset.  At  the  Y.  M.  C. 
A.  there  is  also  a  slight  touch  with  the  ward.  In  its  Life  Clubs  so-called, 
there  is.  a  small  membership  of  Fourth  Ward  boys,  its  Rooming  Directory 
and  Free  Employment  Agency  must  also  be  used  by  the  district  on  occa¬ 
sions,  but  the  very  nature  of  this  institution  forbids  that  it  touch  the  ward 
very  much.  Its  benefits  are  mostly  for  those  who  can  afford  to  pay  its 
fees,  and  who  are  more  or  less  in  religious  harmony  with  its  intention. 
Its  possibilities  for  the  future  we  cannot  mention  here.  Like  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  in  its  relation  to  the  ward  and  its  work  for  the  whole  city,  we  have 
the  Brotherhood.  Under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Crapsey,  its  meetings  are 
held  each  Sunday  evening  in  the  Victoria  Theater,  and  from  the  fine  plat¬ 
form  which  it  provides,  there  must  be  a  continual  influence  for  good 
going  out  to  many  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  theater.  As 
part  of  the  city,  the  ward  must  have  its  share  also  in  the  aid  which  the 
Brotherhood  is  able  to  give  to  the  needy.  But  it  is  as  difficult  to  give  a 
ward  estimate  of  the  influence  of  these  institutions  as  to  estimate  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  those  institutions  outside  of  the  ward  which  are  entering  to  aid 
every  day  in  many  ways.  For  example,  the  city  Poor  Department  has  had 
an  average  of  41  recipients  a  year  of  its  charity  for  the  last  five  years  in  the 
ward  and  the  Charity  Organization  Society  has  had  49  a  year.  The  chief 


20 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


purpose  of  noting  these  assets  of  the  ward  whether  we  are  able  to  say 
much  of  them  or  no,  is  to  record  the  kind  of  helpfulness  which  we  may 
■expect  from  them  in  any  attempt  to  better  the  conditions  of  the  ward. 
With  each  one  at  its  given  or  chosen  task  we  may  know  better  how  to 
•encourage  co-operation. 

It  is  usual  in  numbering  the  assets  of  a  community  to  speak  at  some 
length  of  its  religious  institutions.  If  we  follow  this  custom  in 
the  ward  we  shall  have  to  speak  of  some  six  churches  and  two  or  three 
small  missions.  It  is  natural  that  we  should  look  to  them  in  this  way, 
for  do  they  not  stand  for  the  supreme  good  of  all  communities? 


FOR  SALE  :  LET  THOSE  WHO  BUY  PUT  IN  THE  TITLE  DEEDS, 

“THAT  THE  CHILDREN  SHALL  PLAY  HERE  FOREVER” 

For  long  ages  they  have  been  supposed  to  be  their  brothers’  keepers. 
They  have  been  the  teachers  of  the  human  helpfulness  which  should 
lift  up  the  fallen  and  care  for  the  sick  and  here,  they  are  supposed  to  be 
the  light  of  that  little  world  which  we  have  made  the  subject  of  our  survey. 
There  are  six  churches  in  this  ward :  St.  Mary’s,  Catholic ;  Christ  Church, 
Episcopalian ;  the  Universalist,  the  Unitarian,  the  Congregational,  and  the 
Christian  Church.  In  addition  to  these  regular  churches  there  is  Elim 
Church  on  William  Street,  the  Liberty  Mission  on  Howell  Street,  the 
Puritan  Mission  on  South  Avenue,  and  another  religious  mission  whose 
■cult  we  could  not  discover,  in  one  of  the  buildings  on  Main  Street  bridge. 
In  our  enquiry  of  the  ministers  of  the  churches  as  to  the  amount  of  social 
and  institutional  work  which  their  churches  were  doing,  we  found  that 
ao  far  as  they  were  concerned  that  there  was  a  very  real  desire  to  do 
:good  things  for  the  community,  but  a  great  lack  of  actual  doing.  This 
was  often  because  of  financial  reasons  and  for  the  reason  that  all  the 
■churches  are  still  in  the  pioneer  days  of  social  service,  and  the  right  thing 
to  do  and  the  right  way  to  go  about  it,  is  almost  unknown  to  them.  It  is 
so  hard  for  them  to  sever  the  religious  motives  from  the  purely  human¬ 
itarian  demands  which  the  modern  social  call  makes  upon  them.  So  far 
as  the  function  of  a  church  is  concerned,  in  its  spiritual  work,  there  is 
doubtless  good  being  done,  it  does  not  lend  itself  to  the  measurement  of  a 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


21 


survey,  but  need  not  be  any  the  less  an  asset  for  that  reason.  One  pastor 
wrote,  “The  work  of  carrying  on  the  Kingdom  is  done  largely  on  the 
basis  that  a  parish  church  should  be  the  fountain  center  of  spirituality,, 
that  the  community  may  be  filled  with  spiritual  grace  to  undertake  that 
up-building  of  the  moral  and  physical  well-being  of  the  people.”  This  is, 
of  course,  the  most  usual  way  of  describing  the  work  of  a  church,  we  have: 
no  fault  to  find  with  it  if  it  means  exactly  what  it  says ;  if  the  moral  and 
physical  well-being  of  the  community  is  to  be  the  test  of  the  fountain  of 
spirituality,  we  feel  sure  that  those  who  think  this  way  will  soon  feel  the 
need  of  more  moral  spirituality.  The  Fourth  Ward  is  a  splendid  chal¬ 
lenge  to  its  churches,  and  while  it  may  be  ecclesiastically  correct  to  confine 
the  work  to  their  worship  service  only,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the 
church  which  does  no  more  than  that  will  soon  be  a  dead  center  of  unspir¬ 
ituality.  We  recall  the  prayer  of  the  little  girl  who  said,  “I  saw  a  ragged 
man,  looking  very  miserable  in  the  storm  to-day,  but  it  is  none  of  our 
business,  is  it  God  ?”  If  we  read  aright  the  signs  of  the  times  we  feel 
sure  that  the  church  which  comes  to  God  with  that  kind  of  statement,  is 
doomed. 

With  the  exception  of  the  Unitarian  Church,  all  the  churches  draw  a 
number  of  their  people  from  the  Fourth  Ward,  and  there  must  thereby 
be  a  direct  and  indirect  interest  on  their  part  in  many  people  who  live- 
there.  St.  Mary’s  seems  to  have  the  largest  number  of  adherents  in  the- 
ward,  but  the  little  Christian  Church  on  Howell  Street  has  nearly  as 
many.  The  Universalist  and  the  Unitarian  Churches  are  doing  a  little 
social  work  which  is  already  beginning  to  tell  in  different  betterments.  At 
the  Liberty  Mission  on  Howell  Street  there  is  a  Home  for  a  number  of 
working  women  where  rooms  can  be  had  at  a  low  price.  But  the  only 
institutional  Church  in  the  ward  is  the  Unitarian  Church  on  Temple- 
Street.  Fewest  ward  people  worship  there,  but  it  would  appear  that  more 
receive  humanitarian  and  social  help  from  it  than  from  any  other  relig¬ 
ious  society  in  the  ward.  At  Gannett  House  on  Temple  Street,  there  is- 
something  doing  every  day.  A  boys’  club  which  began  this  year  with 
over  200  members  meets  there  twice  a  week,  to  do  various  things  in  the 
manual  training  classes  and  in  the  gymnasium.  On  another  evening  a 
number  of  working  girls  of  the  neighborhood  gather  for  dancing  and 
other  forms  of  amusement  under  good  supervision.  A  dancing  school  for 
the  young  people  of  the  ward  meets  every  week.  On  Saturday  some  sixty 
younger  girls  gather  in  classes  in  dressmaking,  cooking,  dancing 
Four  clubs  use  their  basketball  court  at  different  times  of  the  week,  and 
going  from  the  place  all  the  time  are  workers  who  help  in  the  homes  of 
the  people,  sometimes  it  is  to  pay  rent,  sometimes  to  buy  clothes  and 
food.  Last  summer  the  Gannett  House  nurse  was  placed  in  the  school’ 
district  to  attend  to  the  milk  station.  There  being  no  tubs  at  the  City 
Baths  for  mothers  to  take  their  families  for  the  weekly  wash,  Gannett 
House  was  opened  all  through  the  summer  and  the  tubbing  process  was 
gone  through  at  the  rate  of  23  a  day,  in  the  bath  room  there  installed. 
Good  as  this  work  is  for  the  neighborhood,  there  is  one  serious  criticism 
to  be  made  of  it  all.  It  should  be  done  in  the  people’s  own  Temple,  the 
school  house.  Clubs  and  dancing  classes,  domestic  training  and  baths, 
basketball  and  gymnasium,  nurse  and  visitor  are  all  legitimate  school 
activities.  And  when  the  City  of  Rochester  will  put  the  work  of  such 
institutions  as  Gannett  House  into  the  school,  we  understand  that  this  place- 
of  goodwill  will  gladly  look  for  something  else  to  do.  Until  the  city  does- 


22 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 

m/ 


this  we  feel  that  there  rests  on  every  church  the  obligation  to  do  these 
things  for  the  community.  We  say  obligation  because  we  mean  that  there 
is  a  real  debt  which  each  church  owes  to  the  community  in  which  it 
.stands.  Each  year  the  Fourth  Ward,  through  the  City,  places  thousands 
of  dollars  into  the  treasuries  of  these  churches,  and  they  are  under  the 
obligation  to  make  some  return.  We  refer  to  the  exemption  from  taxes 
which  these  churches  receive.  Somebody  has  to  pay  them,  and  the 
churches  may  well  ask  themselves  the  question  how  much  their  freedom 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  FOURTH  WARD 

1. — The  Unitarian-Congregational  Church.  2. — Gannett  House.  3. — St.  Mary’s  Catholic  Church. 

4. — Christ  Church— Epicopalian.  5. — The  South  Congregational  Church.  6. -The  Disciples  Church. 

7. — The  Universalist  Church. 

from  taxes  accounts  for  the  poverty  around  them  in  property  which  is 
taxed.  The  thousands  of  dollars  which  the  City  of  Rochester  gives  the 
churches  of  the  Fourth  Ward  each  year,  at  the  very  least  places  upon 
them  the  social  obligation  to  return  it  to  the  people  of  the  ward  in  work 
for  better  housing,  playgrounds  and  the  opening  of  the  school  houses  and 
those  other  humanitarian  efforts  which  are  not  charity  but  common 
justice.  It  will  be  a  shame  for  the  sense  of  justice  in  the  churches  to  be 
surpassed  by  the  sense  of  justice  in  the  community,  the  churches  ought  to 
be  moral  enough  after  all  these  years  to  be  the  ethical  leaders  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  not  the  unwilling  followers  of  the  visions  which  are  given  outside 
the  churches.  But  it  is  the  vision  that  men  will  follow,  whether  it  have 
the  church  behind  it  or  no,  for  where  the  community  is  without  it,  its 
people  must  inevitably  go  wrong. 

Fast,  but  very  far  from  least,  we  have  the  asset  of  the  schools  of  the 
ward.  We  did  not  succeed  in  obtaining  very  much  information  of  the 
parochial  school  at  St.  Mary’s,  only  about  one-sixth  of  the  children  of  the 
ward  go  to  the  parochial  school,  so  we  must  confine  ourselves  to  the  Wads¬ 
worth  School  where  most  of  the  ward  children  are  to  be  found. 
We  have  sometimes  heard  people  say  who  have  seen  the  kind  of 
homes  that  some  of  our  children  are  living  in,  that  they  would  like  to  save 
these  children  from  their  homes.  This  may  be  sometimes  necessary,  but 
we  often  forget  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  saving  a  child  for  its  home. 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


23 


Children  are  often  the  first  to  regenerate  the  homes  which  have  hurt  them. 
We  have  found  this  to  be  so  in  the  Open-Air  School  in  this  city.  They  go 
back  to  the  homes  which  have  made  them  weak  with  ideals  which  have 
transformed  them  into  healthy  places  to  live  in.  This  is  happening  all  the 
time  to  some  extent  in  the  Fourth  Ward  from  the  influence  of  the  chil¬ 
dren  who  go  to  No.  12  School.  Apart  from  the  regular  school  influence, 
we  found  that  this  school  was  the  center  of  all  manner  of  good  things.  It 
was  in  this  school  that  the  first  Mother’s  Club  in  the  city  was  started. 
This  was  some  years  ago  in  connection  with  the  kindergarten ;  it  has 
bought  most  of  the  pictures  for  the  school  building,  and  until  the  Board 
of  Education  took  up  the  work,  it  paid  the  salary  for  the  gymnasium 
instructor  who  taught  the  boys  after  school.  Soon  after  the  building  was 
finished,  they  raised  a  good  sized  nest-egg  towards  the  installation  of  a 
gymnasium  on  the  third  floor  of  the  building.  They  also  give  the  gradua¬ 
tion  banquets  and  at  times  even  give  material  help  to  homes  in  the  neigh¬ 
borhood.  Like  the  Mother’s  Clubs  in  other  schools  they  raise  most  of 
their  money  by  lectures  and  cooked  food  sales  and  so  on.  From  its  very 
character  this  club  is  one  of  the  great  assets  of  the  ward  and  in  a  future 
chapter  we  want  to  point  out  how  it  may  increase  its  usefulness. 

Last  summer  this  was  the  only  school  in  the  city  which  had  a  vacation 
school  within  it.  We  hope  that  such  a  shameful  thing  will  never  have  to 
be  written  of  a  city  of  this  size  again.  For  six  weeks  during  July  and 
August  the  school  was  opened  for  the  happy  business  of  the  children  who 
must  be  doing  something.  In  some  way  it  took  the  place  of  the  absent 
playground  and  many  who  would  have  been  on  the  streets  all  these  weeks 
were  able  to  occupy  their  days  in  happy  work.  A  coaching  class  for  the 
children  who  were  sick  and  backward  during  the  previous  semesters  was 
part  of  the  Vacation  School  work.  In  1909  there  was  an  average  attend¬ 
ance  of  138  from  306  children,  in  1910  there  was  an  average  of  179  from 
316  children,  this  year  it  was  larger  still.  These  children  came  from  long 
distances  showing  the  need  for  more  of  these  schools.  Last  year  they 
came  from  the  following  schools: 

One  hundred  twenty-five  came  from  No.  12  School;  Clinton  Avenue 
South.  Forty-four  came  from  No.  24  School ;  Benton  Street.  Thirty- 
two  came  from  No.  15  School;  Monroe  Avenue.  Twenty-two  came  from 
No.  3  School;  Tremont  Street.  Nine  came  from  No.  14  School;  Scio 
Street.  Eight  came  from  No.  5  School ;  Jones  Street.  Six  came  from 
No.  13  School;  Hickory  Street.  Forty-five  came  from  Mt.  Mary’s  Paro¬ 
chial  School  on  South  Street. 

Then  smaller  groups  from  other  private  schools,  from  East  High,  and 
from  Nos.  4,  18,  19,  20,  21  and  35.  In  one  of  her  reports  Miss  Brown, 
the  Principal,  said:  “Could  the  taxpayers  realize  just  what  it  means  to 
these  children,  the  physical  and  moral  benefits  conferred  by  keeping  them 
happily  busy,  there  would  be  a  great  demand  for  the  extension  of  this 
work.” 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  school  activities  here  is  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  the  school  is  meeting  the  need  for  the  adequate  feeding  of  the 
backward  children.  Reports  from  many  cities  show  that  there  are  plenty 
of  children  who  come  to  school  hungry  and  improperly  fed  and  it  is  not  at 
all  unnatural  that  Rochester  should  be  of  this  number.  The  work  has  not 
been  undertaken  here  with  any  feeling  that  this  solution  will  go  very  far 
in  its  effects.  But  where  the  child  cannot  be  reached  through  the  home, 
the  home  must  be  reached  through  the  child.  The  misfortunes,  misdeeds 


24 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


and  shortcomings  of  parents  must  not  be  allowed  to  handicap  the  child. 
Of  course  the  underfed  child  is  usually  not  alone  in  its  trouble,  there  may 
be  an  underfed  baby  at  home,  an  ill-nourished  mother  and  other  weak¬ 
nesses  in  the  domestic  life  which  point  to  larger  problems,  but  the  school 
can  at  least  reach  part  of  the  difficulty  and  where  it  can  do  so,  every 
encouragement  should  be  given.  At  present  the  work  has  been  confined 
to  the  two  special  classes  which  we  have  already  mentioned,  for  these 
classes  have  only  one  session  and  the  lunch  hour  comes  in  of  itself.  Under 
the  scientific  domestic  genius  of  Mrs.  Hodgkin  of  the  East  High  School 
Lunch  Room,  one  cent  portions  have  been  given  to  these  little  ones  which 
have  made  a  material  difference  in  their  behavior  and  progress.  Here 
are  some  of  the  lunches,  let  any  reader  judge  of  the  nutrition  which  they 
must  give : 

1.  Cornmeal  Mush,  Sliced  Oranges  and  Bread.  2.  Baked  Beans,. 
Hot  Chocolate  and  Bread.  3.  Creamed  Codfish,  Apple  Sauce,  Hot 
Chocolate  and  Bread.  4.  Creamed  Potato  Soup,  Bread  Pudding  and 
Hot  Chocolate.  5.  Vegetable  Soup,  Potatoes  and  Meat  Sandwiches,  and 
Hot  Chocolate.  6.  Baked  Split  Peas,  Stewed  Rhubarb,  Hot  Chocolate 
and  Bread. 

These  are  just  samples  from  a  list  of  menus  which  we  saw  at  the 
school.  Each  menu  costs  two  cents.  Half  a  portion  can  be  had  for  one 
cent.  But  so  popular  are  the  lunches  with  the  children  that  one  day  when 
Cornbeaf  Hash  was  the  main  portion,  one  boy  enthusiastically  bought 
seven  portions.  The  teachers  report  that  since  this  activity  has  been 
introduced  into  the  school  there  has  been  a  marked  difference  in  the 
behavior  of  the  children.  We  older  children  ought  to  have  learned  long 
ago  that  there  is  very  little  work  that  can  be  done  by  any  one,  especially 
by  the  little  ones,  when  the  “tummy  feels  bad.”  Last  year  the  work  of 
the  preparation  of  this  food  was  done  by  one  of  the  normal  classes  of  the 
Mechanics  Institute,  the  equipment  being  given  by  the  Board  of  Educa¬ 
tion.  This  year  the  work  is  being  paid  for  by  the  Mother’s  Club  which  is 
attached  to  the  school,  on  the  whole  a  very  much  better  plan  until  the 
Board  can  be  responsible  for  all  the  expense  connected  with  it.  It  ought 
to  be  recorded  that  the  children’s  pennies  practically  pay  for  the  portions, 
and  estimated  by  the  most  material  of  standards  it  is  really  a  very  small 
investment  to  ask  the  city  to  make,  for  such  large  returns.  To  see  what 
other  cities  at  home  and  abroad  are  doing  in  this  matter  we  should  like  to 
refer  our  readers  to  the  Government  Bulletin  1909,  No.  3,  of  the  United 
States  Bureau  of  Education,  on  “The  Daily  Meals  of  School  Children." 
This  is  a  sixty  page  pamphlet  which  goes  into  the  matter  in  a  very  thor¬ 
ough  and  wise  manner. 

May  we  say  in  drawing  this  article  on  the  assets  of  the  Fourth  Ward 
to  a  close,  that  for  these  assets  we  are  in  real  need  of  conservative  men 
and  women.  If  the  people  and  institutions  of  the  ward  can  be  shown 
that  there  is  danger  of  these  assets  being  destroyed,  the  wakening  touch 
will  have  been  given.  We  need  conservators,  men  and  women  who  will 
say  to  the  landlords  and  tenement  owners  who  sell  darkness  for  light,, 
shacks  for  shelter,  and  disease  for  fresh  air,  that  the  Home  and  the  Child 
and  the  School  are  sacred  and  must  be  conserved,  that  these  are  things 
which  we  cannot  afford  to  give  up.  Men  and  women  who  will  stand-pat 
for  these  things  will  deserve  the  honor  which  all  on-coming  generations 
will  give  to  those  who  know  the  things  which  feed  the  roots  of  Life. 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


25 


Q)hat  to  do  in  the  Ward  Now 


The  chief  warning  made  to  the  City  of  Rochester  by  the  results  of 
this  somewhat  modest  Survey  is  its  call  to  watch  our  evil  civic  tendencies. 
We  have  no  excuse  to  repeat  the  social  crimes  and  disasters  of  the  cities 
of  the  old  world.  Any  student  of  demography  can  discover  in  our  Ameri¬ 
can  cities  and  even  in  Rochester,  tendencies  which  spell  trouble  in  the 
future  for  the  physical  and  moral  well-being  of  our  race.  It  took  the 
English  factory  system  with  its  accompanying  congestion  of  population, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  to  awaken  England  to  the  fact  that 
in  place  of  the  strong  English  yeomen  there  had  arisen  hundreds  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  narrow  chested,  enaemic  stunted  factory  hands,  who  were  physi¬ 
cally  unfit  even  to  do  the  dog’s  work  of  fighting.  We  have  already 
aroused  ourselves  in  this  land  to  these  dangers,  but  the  awakening  has 
yet  to  come  to  the  vast  majority,  especially  to>  those  who  find  their  ignor¬ 
ance  profitable.  It  is  always  hard  to  convince  a  man  of  the  evil  of  any¬ 
thing  that  puts  money  into  his  pocket. 

It  may  be  well  to  say  at  the  outset  of  this  section  of  the  report  that 
we  do  not  believe  that  any  one  remedy,  nor  the  suggestions  and  experi¬ 
ence  of  any  one  mind  will  make  the  Fourth  Ward,  “as  it  is  in  Heaven.” 
But  we  are  convinced  that  the  attempt  to  carry  out  some  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  closing  sections  of  this  report  will  bring  wisdom  enough  to.  make 
the  ward  twenty  times  over  a  better  ward  to  live  in. 

The  first  thing  to  do  in  the  Fourth  Ward  is  to  more  efficiently  utilize 
its  present  assets.  This  may  seem  trite  advice,  but  it  is  one  of  the  most 
practical  suggestions  to  make.  Let  us  begin  with  the  School,  the  only 
real  Temple  of  the  People.  There  are  so  many  Rochester  teachers  whose 
social  sense  is  awakened  that  we  believe  that  they  will  not  need  much 
more  than  the  suggestion  of  the  wealth  of  their  opportunity  to  begin  to 
work  for  greater  things.  The  School  can  be  a  more  efficient  center  for 
the  children.  The  chief  things  that  Number  Twelve  School  seems  to 
need  for  its  children  are  a  School  Nurse,  a  Gymnasium  and  a  Play¬ 
ground.  The  first  of  these  must  have  been  very  evident  from  our  report 
of  the  sickness  there  last  year,  and  also  from  the  fact  that  so  many  of 
the  Ward  children  live  in  such  bad  housing  conditions.  A  beginning 
might  be  made  if  such  a  nurse  could  spend  half  her  time  at  this  school 
and  half  say  at  Number  Fifteen  on  Monroe  Avenue.  The  Gymnasium 
has  already  been  begun,  but  sadly  needs  finishing.  A  thousand  dollars 
would  be  ample  to  help  this  part  of  the  plant  well  on  the  road  to  efficiency. 
A  Playground  is  the  greatest  need  of  all.  When  a  ward  has  literally 
hundreds  of  its  children  with  not  even  a  yard  to  play  in,  it  is  fearful  to 
think  of  the  social  results.  The  question  of  money  ought  not  to  enter 
here,  it  is  too  important  to  delay  for  want  of  money.  In  New  York  City 
in  1908,  the  City  fathers  spent  $15,000,000  on  Playgrounds.  In  some 
instances  the  price  of  the  land  was  enormous ;  one  plot  containing  less 
than  two  acres  cost  the  city  $1,811,000.  In  the  far  west,  cities  are  bond¬ 
ing  themselves  for  playgrounds ;  Rochester  cannot  afford  to  have  it  said 
of  her  that  in  this  matter  she  delays.  Let  the  City  acquire  property  near 
to  the  School  for  a  Playground  and  let  it  be  deeded  to  the  children  for¬ 
ever.  They  will  repay  in  a  citizenship  of  which  we  need  not  be  ashamed. 
It  was  our  building  laws  that  robbed  them  of  their  yards,  surely  it  is 
our  bounden  duty  to  provide  a  common  yard  for  the  whole  neighborhood ! 


26 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


If  the  children  are  to  have  these  things,  the  graduate  children  also 
have  a  claim  on  the  School.  The  five  years  from  fourteen  to  nineteen 
in  the  lives  of  our  young  people,  are  as  everyone  should  know,  the  most 
important  years  in  life.  Students  of  crime  tell  us  that  the  largest  per¬ 
centage  of  criminals  are  made  during  these  years.  Students  of  history 
tell  us  on  the  other  hand  that  the  first  steps  towards  greatness  come  from 
the  impressions  of  these  years.  Zona  Gale,  in  her  recent  story,  “Mothers 
of  Men,”  has  one  of  the  women  who  has  been  put  on  a  vigilance  com¬ 
mittee  to  keep  the  young  folks  off  the  streets  at  nights,  ask  this  poser : 
“They  won’t  set  home,  an’  when  we’ve  vigilanced  ’em  off  the  street,, 
where  are  we  going  to  vigilance  ’em  to?”  Then  one  of  the  women  has 
an  inspiration.  “Give  ’em  the  place  that’s  their’s,”  she  says.  “Give  ’em 
the  Schoolhouse,  open  evenin’s  an  lit  an  het  an'  music  an'  things  doin’.” 
And  so  Friendship  Village  Schoolhouse  becomes  a  Neighborhood  Center. 


Civic  Improvement  Committee 

No  one  who  knows  the  homes  in  the  Fourth  Ward  as  they  are  to  be 
found  in  the  tenements  will  deny  that  this  is  one  of  the  things  to  do  in 
the  Ward.  Four  rooms  on  the  third  floor,  up  a  gloomy  staircase,  with 
a  smelly  kitchen,  and  father  and  his  friends  playing  cards  and  smoking, 
does  not  make  home  for  the  girl  who  comes  home  from  the  factory.  She 
will  not  stay  home,  however  many  sermons  are  preached  on  “Home  as 
a  Social  Center.”  She  will  go  to  the  dancing  saloon,  the  moving  picture 
show,  to  the  streets  with  the  boys,  and  if  she  goes  farther  than  she  meant 
to  go,  we  all  ought  to  feel  that  the  blame  rests  on  our  shoulders  too. 
Open  the  Schoolhouse.  Put  the  Dance  Hall  there,  place  the  Moving  Pic¬ 
ture  Show  there,  and  let  the  healthy  desire  for  recreation  find  a  place 
for  itself  under  municipal  wholesomeness  and  neighborhood  friendliness. 
Fourth  Ward  young  people  now  dance  over  Saloons  on  South  Avenue, 
except  for  the  few  who  have  found  the  small  dance  school  at  Gannett 
House,  none  seem  to  be  having  the  right  environment  for  their  recrea¬ 
tion.  This  is  something  to  do  for  the  Fourth  Ward  now. 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Ramball 


2  7 


But  the  Citizens  have  also  a  claim  on  the  Schoolhouse.  They  need 
a  Ward  Commons  where  they  can  eat  together  and  foster  the  spirit  of 
Neighborhood.  They  need  a  place  in  which  to  register  and  cast  their 
votes.  And  what  building  can  there  be  more  fitted  than  the  Great  Com¬ 
munity  Hall  which  we  call  the  Schoolhouse!  The  Fourth  of  July  Wel¬ 
come  Fests  which  the  Rochester  City  Club  has  given  to  the  new  citizens 
of  our  city  each  year  ought  to  be  carried  out  in  the  Wards.  Let  every 
Schoolhouse  have  its  dining  hall,  and  let  every  year  witness  the  gradua¬ 
tion  of  our  youth  into  citizenship  at  such  a  banquet.  Let  our  New 
Americans  and  the  Coming-of-Age  Americans  be  the  guests  of  the  Neigh¬ 
borhood  and  the  entrance  on  the  duties  of  Citizenship  come  in  the  honor 
of  Freedom  and  the  dignity  of  democracy.  This  will  be  furthered  if  we 
sense  the  absurdity  of  asking  freemen  to  use  the  barber's  shops  and  the 
Tobacconist’s  stores  as  the  altars  of  their  Franchise;  the  school  can  serve: 
as  the  best  altar.  If  other  cities  in  this  country  can  do  this,  why  not 
Rochester?  Let  us  begin  in  the  Fourth  Ward.  All  these  school  activ¬ 
ities  increase  the  spirit  of  democracy,  and  the  increase  of  democracy  will 
be  the  salvation  of  the  Ward. 


Civic  Improvement  Committee 

It  is  very  often  the  honor  of  the  women  of  our  communities  to  start 
such  betterments  and  we  shall  finish  our  word  about  the  school  by  call¬ 
ing  for  a  more  efficient  Mother’s  Club  at  the  School.  It  was  the  first  to 
be  started  in  Rochester,  and  deserves  to  be  the  best.  At  present  it  seems 
to  be  composed  mostly  of  the  few  mothers,  in  comfortable  homes.  Asv 
such  it  has  done  many  fine  things,  but  it  has  done  nothing  as  yet  to  what 
it  will  do  when  every  mother  in  the  Ward  is  made  to  feel  that  the  Club 
is  her  Club.  Some  good  evening  meetings,  house  to  house  work,  inter¬ 
esting  their  children,  are  some  of  the  “paper-plans"  which  occur  to  us 
to  help  bring  this  about.  A  live  representative  Mother’s  Club  at  Number 
Twelve  School  could  help  the  whole  ward  to  civic  efficiency.  After  all, 
is  there  a  thing  mentioned  in  this  Survey  which  has  not  fundamental 
relation  to  the  motherhood  of  the  Ward?  If  there  is  one  cure  for  all,  it  is 
good  mothering.  Another  asset  of  the  Ward  we  have  said  are  the 
Churches.  Suggestions  for  the  increase  of  their  efficiency  we  have  already 


28 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


made  in  a  preceding  chapter.  So  many  are  the  things  that  we  should 
like  to  see  the  seven  churches  of  the  ward  performing,  that  we  have 
been  more  than  once  tempted  to  play  the  role  of  a  new  “John  the  Divine,” 
and  after  hearing  loud  trumpets  behind  us,  write  to  the  “Seven  Churches 
of  the  Fourth  Ward”  the  old  time  words :  “I  know  thy  works,  that 
thou  hast  a  name  that  thou  livest,  and  thou  art  dead.  Be  thou  watchful 
and  stablish  the  things  that  remain,  which  were  ready  to  die ;  for  I  have 
found  no  works  of  thine  fulfilled  before  my  God.”  We  will  be  content  to 
suggest  but  one  thing  that  the  churches  of  the  ward  could  do  more  effi¬ 
ciently.  It  will  be  in  the  line  of  their  method  and  will  be  something 
that  they  can  all  do  together ;  and  it  will  enable  them  to  contribute  a 
real  good  to  the  Ward.  One  of  the  great  needs  of  the  ward  is  a  home 
where  economic  and  intelligible  standards  of  living  are  set  up  and  where 
■every  one  finds  a  friend.  In  Rochester  we  call  such  a  place  a  Housekeep¬ 
ing  Center.  Here  will  live  a  settlement  worker  and  a  Nurse.  They  will 
both  teach  in  the  homes  of  the  people  and  will  be  the  clearing  house  for 
the  ward’s  many  social  needs.  The  ideals  and  work  of  such  establish¬ 
ments  can  be  splendidly  studied  at  the  Center  already  on  Lewis  Street 
in  this  city.  The  Lewis  Street  Center  is  backed  and  managed  by  Protes¬ 
tants,  Catholics  and  by  Jewish  friends  and  all  is  splendidly  meeting  the 
needs  of  the  homes.  The  settlement  worker  is  a  Protestant  and  the 
nurse  is  a  Catholic.  In  the  Fourth  Ward  we  could  do  the  same.  Let 
all  the  churches  unite  to  do  this  thing.  It  will  cost  about  $2,000  a  year. 
One  church  in  the  ward, — a  small  one,  too, — has  given  during  the  last 
sixteen  years  over  $30,000  to  foreign  missions ;  all  of  them  are  doubt¬ 
less  doing  similar  irrelevant  things.  Here  they  can  bring  a  little  bit  of 
tangible  heaven  to  their  own  doors ;  and  we  do  not  believe  that  they 
will  wholly  dislike  seeing  their  money  expended.  This  is  what  the 
Churches  CAN  do  for  the  Fourth  Ward  now. 

The  third  asset  in  the  ward  which  needs  to  be  brought  to  greater 
efficiency  is  the  enforcement  of  Law ;  or  the  better  execution  of  the  will 
of  the  People.  This  is  one  of  the  most  important  sections  of  this  chapter 
and  will  cause  us  to  refer  to  many  things.  It  is  not  putting  it  too  strongly 
to  say  that  half  the  misery  in  the  Fourth  Ward  is  from  causes  that  the 
adequate  enforcement  of  the  law  could  remedy.  Most  of  us  go  to  sleep 
as  soon  as  we  get  a  good  law  into  the  charter,  and  think  that  the  work 
of  reform  is  over,  where  it  has  only  begun.  This  is  why  some  politicians 
are  so  glad  to  pass  a  law,  it  soothes ;  it  puts  an  end  to  the  troublesome 
energy  of  reformers  for  the  time  being.  It  is  always  possible  to  get  intox¬ 
icated  on  Sunday  in  the  Fourth  Ward;  we  have  even  known  the  would-be 
■drinkers  to  be  waiting  in  line  for  the  place  to  open  in  the  early  morning. 
There  are  police  about,  but  they  do  not  see  these  things.  There  were  Red 
Light  dens  in  the  Fourth  Ward.  One  place  was  raided  soon  after  the 
Survey  was  made,  two  others  have  since  gone  we  know  not  where. 
One  woman  rented  two  houses  for  the  trade,  when  her  next  door  neighbor 
complained  of  the  character  of  her  house.  So  impossible  is  it  to  get  tan¬ 
gible  evidence  of  these  things  that  we  can  do  little  more  than  say  that 
more  vigilance  is  wanted  on  the  part  of  our  police.  There  are  tenements 
in  the  ward  without  fire-escapes  and  blocks  containing  many  more  than 
the  limit  of  eight  families  without  janitors,  and  last  but  far  from  least 
sanitary  conditions  which  are  a  disgrace  to  a  civilized  city.  The  behest 
that  citizens  should  have  respect  for  the  law  is  hardly  anywhere  so  nulli¬ 
fied  as  in  this  ward.  In  the  face  of  some  of  the  conditions  we  were  asked 
what  difiference  the  law  made,  and  we  were  obliged  to  confess  very  little. 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


29 


We  have  a  splendid  over-crowding  ordinance,  but  we  found  thirty  men  in 
four  rooms ;  and  in  one  instance  an  orphan  boy  had  to  sleep  in  the  hall¬ 
way,  because  there  was  no  room.  We  have  the  finest  Health  Officer  in  the 
country,  but  we  found  one  toilet  to  thirty  persons ;  and  in  another  place 
one  to  twenty-eight  persons ;  and  in  one  of  the  places  on  Main  Street 
bridge,  even  four  families  without  any  toilet  at  all!  We  found  dark 
rooms  and  cellar  homes  and  garbage  conditions  which  were  indescribable. 
All  these  things  mean  but  one  thing,  namely,  that  we  are  either  not  will¬ 
ing  or  not  able  to  execute  the  will  of  the  people.  But  in  any  case  our 
ability  depends  on  our  willingness.  If  this  city  had  a  Department  of 
Health  and  not  a  small  Bureau  in  the  Department  of  Public  Safety,  and 
appropriations  large  enough  to  increase  its  staff  with  men  who  could 
really  work,  we  believe  that  the  Fourth  Ward  would  soon  show  a  different 
aspect.  We  deliberately  write  of  men  who  can  really  zvork  because  we 
think  that  it  is  a  policy  of  the  past,  and  not  in  harmony  with  the  sanitary 
ideals  of  the  present  to  permit  old  soldiers  to  be  on  the  staff  of  a  Health 
Department.  The  efficiency  that  is  required  in  such  a  department  calls 
more  and  more  for  energy  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  the  city  has  a  right  to 
that  kind  of  work.  We  say  this  in  full  respect  for  the  splendid  work 
which  our  soldiers  have  rendered  under  difficult  circumstances  for  their 
city  as  well  as  the  country.  But  we  cannot  tell  of  what  to  do  in  the 
Fourth  Ward  or  in  any  other  Ward  without  calling  attention  to  this  great 
need  for  greater  support  for  our  Health  Officer.  Personal  prejudice- 
should  not  be  allowed  to  hinder  his  work  even  if  we  like  to  possess  it  for 
our  own  morbid  pleasure.  One  thing  we  feel  sure  of ;  if  some  of  his  ideals 
of  housing  conditions  for  human  beings  were  realized  in  this  ward  we 
should  have  less  than  half  of  all  the  other  evils.  In  closing  this  section 
we  call  attention  to  a  provision  of  that  gigantic  social  reform  which  has 
just  been  made  law  in  England:  the  Lloyd-George  Insurance  Bill.  It 
provides  that  where  excessive  sickness  is  found  in  a  locality  and  it  is 
found  to  be  the  fault  of  some  person,  a  claim  may  be  made  against  such 
a  person  for  the  extra  expenditure  incurred  by  reason  of  such  sickness. 
A  landlord,  therefore,  who  shall  permit  his  tenements  to  get  into  such 
a  condition  that  they  cause  excessive  sickness  will  be  compelled  to  pay  for 
his  negligence.  We  believe  that  such  a  provision  in  action  in  this  ward 
would  bring  a  tremendous  claim  on  its  landlords ;  for  as  we  have  already 
shown  50  per  cent,  of  its  school  children  were  sick  last  year  and  lost  over 
2,000  school  days.  That  many  of  these  tenement  landlords  are  good 
church  members  and  men  honored  in  the  city  of  Rochester,  makes  the 
failure  the  greater  for  them.  “Give  heed  to  the  common  good,”  says 
Savonarola,  “and  forget  private  interests ;  for  if  ye  will  reform  the  city 
to  this  intent  ye  will  have  greater  glory  than  in  all  past  times.’' 

But  our  ideal  of  the  Fourth  Ward  cannot  even  rest  content  with  the- 
fulfillment  of  these  requirements.  Its  evils  are  wider  than  the  walls  of 
the  tenements  and  too  deep  for  the  reforming  enthusiasm  of  churches  and 
well  intentioned  people  to  reach.  If  the  home — “the  trysting  place  of  the 
generations” — is  to  be  conserved,  the  moral  and  economic  conditions  out 
of  which  it  comes  must  be  studied.  We  dare  not  attempt  anything  so 
large  as  this,  but  in  our  conclusion  we  will  try  to  suggest  the  line  of 
development  which  it  seems  to  us  will  be  pursued  by  those  who  wisely 
understand  the  needs  of  our  modern  populations.  We  close  this  chapter 
by  drawing  attention  to  the  difference  which  the  recently  tendered  City 
Plan  will  make  to  the  Fourth  Ward.  So  beneficial  will  be  its  adoption  by 
this  city,  so  helpful  for  the  health  of  the  congested  sections,  so  beautiful 


3o 


The  Fourth  Ward  Survey 


LARGEST  BREATHING  PLACE  IN  THE  WARD  I  1.8  acres 

'“His  quiet  eyes  were  looking  down  on  the  Fourth  Ward  as  full  of  sadness  in  the 
stone  of  the  monument  as  if  they  were  the  old  eyes  of  days  gone  by.’’ 

for  the  eyes  of  all,  that  we  do  not  hesitate  to  ask  that  at  the  opportune 
time,  the  whole  ward  seek  to  have  its  share  fully  carried  out.  It  will 
be  seen  from  the  drawings  that  considerable  change  is  contemplated.  In 
place  of  the  old  tenements  on  the  west  side  of  South  Avenue,  there  will 
be  a  green  parkway,  with  a  promenade  along  the  banks  of  the  river.  Trees 
again  will  throw  their  shade  along  the  avenue  even  as  near  to  Main 
Street  as  the  Osburn  House.  The  future  Harbor  of  Rochester  will  be 
seen  from  the  promenade,  and  one  of  the  beauty  spots  of  the  city  will  be 
beside  its  waters.  The  Erie  Canal  bed  will  form  a  new  street,  with  a  lofty 
arcade  on  the  north  side  as  is  illustrated  in  two  of  the  pictures  given 
with  this  chapter.  Main  Street  bridge,  which  is  the  beginning  of  the 
Fourth  Ward,  is  to  have  treatment  sufficient  to  let  us  no  longer  pass  over 
it  without  being  aware  that  the  river  is  below  us.  The  more  nearly  it  can 
be  made  to  approach  the  Ponte  Vechio  of  Florence  the  better  it  will  be 
as  an  esthetic  and  a  financial  proposition.  The  slight  widening  and  the 
archways  which  will  give  glimpes  of  the  river  are  well  worth  having. 
Some  things  will  have  to  happen  soon  when  the  Erie  Canal  is  abandoned 
and  among  other  things  we  hope  that  it  will  be  realized  that  the  bridge 
•over  the  canal  on  South  Avenue  which  looks  like  a  steel  spider-web,  “in 
utter  disregard  of  everything  but  a  simple  engineering  problem,”  is  an 
•opportunity  to  build  there  something  really  beautiful.  We  owe  it  to  our¬ 
selves  to  give  to  our  bridges  the  well-proportioned  simple  beauty  which 
has  placed  the  world’s  great  viaducts  among  the  most  dignified  structures 
of  the  genius  of  man.  On  paper  a  bridge  may  be  just  a  question  of  math¬ 
ematics,  but  out  in  the  open  it  must  be  a  part  of  the  skies  and  the  world 
.around;  and  must  blend  with  all. 


by  Edwin  Alfred  Rumball 


3i 


Once  during  the  warm  summer  nights  we  journeyed  through  Wash¬ 
ington  Square  beneath  the  noble  monument  which  we  have  raised  to  the 
memory  of  the  men  who  stood  beside  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  war 
days.  His  quiet  eyes  were  looking  down  on  the  Fourth  Ward  as  full  of 
sadness  in  the  stone  of  the  monument  as  if  they  were  the  old  eyes  of  days 
gone  by.  Around  the  base  of  the  memorial  huddled  together  in  scores 
were  fathers,  mothers  and  children  of  the  Fourth  Ward.  The  grass 
was  covered  with  their  bodies.  Do  we  need  to  be  told  whence  they  had 
come  and  why  they  had  come  there  in  the  dead  of  night?  Listen.  These 
were  the  homeless  folk  of  the  Fourth  Ward.  It  is  true  they  had  tene¬ 
ments  to  live  in,  they  had  dark  windowless  rooms  in  which  to  sleep,  they 
had  stuffy  passages  and  even  cool  cellars  where  they  could  have  laid  down 
after  the  days’  work  in  the  factory  was  over.  But  these  are  not  Homes. 
They  had  left  their  hot  lofts  and  sought  the  grass  at  Lincoln’s  feet ;  these 
who  have  the  right  to  stand  with  him  as  American  citizens,  who  when 
the  next  Lincoln  comes  to  abolish  the  new  slavery,  will  be  the  soldiers  of 
the  cause;  these  were  the  homeless  folk  of  the  Fourth  Ward.  Homeless 
by  the  law ;  homeless  by  the  consent  of  the  Seven  Churches ;  homeless 
in  order  to  warn  us  in  time  of  the  tendencies  of  our  present  unsocial  legis¬ 
lation,  and  bring  gladness  again  into  the  sad  eyes  that  still  look  down  on 
the  ward  and  its  woe.  We  do  not  believe  that  anything  that  we  have 
suggested  is  hard  to  perform,  we  feel  that  the  task  is  easy  to  those  who 
will  set  the  rights  of  the  people  above  all  others ;  easy  to  those  who  will 
set  the  welfare  of  men  and  women  and  children  above  the  prosperity  of 
business;  easy  for  any  city  administration  to  help  put  into  operation  if 
once  it  becomes  such  as  will  care  more  for  the  making  of  citizens  like 
Lincoln  than  for  the  protection  of  evils  which  send  homeless  ones  to  the 
grassy  base  of  his  monument.  Such  are  some  of  the  things  that  seem 'to 
us  as  needful  to  do  in  the  Fourth  Ward  now. 

CONCLUSION 

After  all  our  reforming  has  been  accomplished  we  shall  still  have 
the  fundamental  wrongs  at  the  basis  of  modern  society  which  are  respon¬ 
sible  for  most  of  the  troubles  in  the  Fourth  Ward  as  in  other  sections  of 
our  populations.  There  is  no  call  to  blame  any  one  for  this,  we  have  not 
yet  evolved  our  Social  State,  but  the  growing  sense  of  the  injustice  of  the 
present  scheme  and  the  awakening  of  a  deeper  sense  of  democracy  for 
industry  as  well  as  government  may  throw  the  opportunity  for  greater 
changes  in  our  path  sooner  than  we  think.  Space  forbids  that  we  paint  a 
picture  of  the  future  of  the  Fourth  Ward  under  a  regime  of  social- 
democratic  legislation ;  but  that  alone  will  make  the  conditions  possible  for 
the  abolition  of  tenements,  car-fares,  wage-slavery,  half-education,  and 
the  political  corruption,  which  things  are  so  largely  to  blame  for  the 
poverty  there  to-day.  When  the  moral  and  economic  conditions  out  of 
which  the  modern  home  comes  have  been  studied  and  changed,  the  “tryst- 
ing-place  of  the  generations”  will  be  such  in  fact  as  well  as  name.  To  give 
HOME  back  to  the  people,  is  the  pledge  of  the  wisest  and  best  men  and 
women  in  the  great  modern  international  Socialist  movement.  They 
would  make  the  world  over  into  a  commune  like  the  home.  Till  that 
comes  or  some  condition  as  good,  let  us  bend  cheerfully  to  the  common 
toil  of  human  service,  patient  in  the  knowledge  that  we  cannot  finish  the 
task,  that  in  the  Fiftieth  Century  there  will  be  something  left  to  do.  But 
what  we  leave  undone  will  dynamite  the  souls  of  men,  women  and  little 
•children  who  are  struggling  for  life  by  our  side  to-day. 


Civic  Improvement  Committ 

Suggestion  for  Treatment  of  Old  Aqueduct,  Court  Street  Bridge  and  Arcade 


